The present invention relates to a method for producing a hot-formed and press-hardened metal component for an automobile.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
The currently used requirement profile for structural automobile components demands that the components have a particularly low weight while simultaneously enabling intentional adjustment of regions of tensile strength. The low weight of the components contributes to a reduction of the overall weight of the automobile, which in turn has advantages for fuel consumption and CO2 emission.
The intentionally adjustable regions of tensile strength of the structural automobile component are hereby used, on one hand, to specifically reduce the weight with the same stiffness and, on the other hand, to intentionally adjust the ductility in certain regions, thereby increasing the crash safety of the overall automobile body for improved protection of the occupants.
Various hot-forming and press-hardening methods for producing metal components with high tensile strength characteristics and low weight are known in the art. In particular, post-treatment methods of a hot-formed and press-hardened metal component for intentionally adjusting partial regions of tensile strength are known in the art. For example, such regions are produced by inductive post-heating, tempering and the like, thereby creating ductile material properties. Such post-processing steps have the disadvantage that the production costs become relatively high due to the post-treatment operations. Moreover, performing such subsequent operations requires at least two process steps with frequently different tools. This results in long production times of such heat post-treated automobile component.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to obviate prior art shortcomings and to provide an improved method for producing structural automobile components having regions of different strength.